Night Of The Scorpion

I remember the night my motherwas stung by a scorpion. Ten hoursof steady rain had driven himto crawl beneath a sack of rice.

Parting with his poison - flash of diabolic tail in the dark room -he risked the rain again.

The peasants came like swarms of flies and buzzed the name of God a hundred times to paralyse the Evil One.

With candles and with lanterns throwing giant scorpion shadows on the mud-baked wallsthey searched for him: he was not found.They clicked their tongues.With every movement that the scorpion made his ...